Many coastal areas have a risk of high tsunami sea waves which may cause the death of coastal inhabitants and huge damage to cities and industrial and cultural buildings and infrastructure. The problem of protection from the oncoming water flows and accompanying phenomena is one of the most significant contemporary problems of human life.
In Japan, residents are still recovering from the disaster caused by the earthquake and the following tsunami that occurred in 2011.
Radioactive water was recently discovered leaking from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, which suffered a level 7 nuclear meltdown after the tsunami. Japan relies on nuclear power, and many of the country's nuclear reactors remain closed because of stricter seismic safety standards since the earthquake. Four years after the quake, about 230,000 people who lost their homes were still living in temporary housing.
The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake triggered a series of devastating tsunamis along the coasts of most landmasses bordering the Indian Ocean and killed 200,000 people in 14 countries.
The loss of people lives that occurs during tsunamis is accompanied by enormous industrial and commercial destructions in the coastal areas with waves up to 30 meters. The consequences last much longer as economic losses and health and environmental issues, e.g., as a result of destruction of nuclear power stations.
Attempts have been made heretofore to design and construct various installations and structures in the coastal areas that potentially may be subjected to the effect of the tsunami waves, especially in the highly populated areas.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,931,976 issued on Jan. 12, 2015 to Kawahara, et al. discloses a tsunami breakwater wall of a multilayered steel pipe pile structure that includes a multilayered steel pipe pile where a bottom end thereof reaches a predetermined depth of a support layer and is installed to the ground such that an upper end thereof protrudes upward from a ground surface, and a wall body constructed integral with a part of the multilayered steel pipe pile that protrudes upward from the ground surface. The multilayered steel pipe pile is made from a plurality of large diameter steel pipe piles of different diameters, an upper end of the inner most side steel pipe pile protrudes upward from the ground surface, and the wall body is constructed to a part of the steel pipe pile protruding upward from the ground surface.
US Patent Application Publication No. 20140227033 published on Aug. 14, 2014 (Inventor: Scheel) discloses a submarine construction for tsunami and flooding protection, for fish farming, and for protection of buildings in the sea. What is proposed is a new technology based on the use of steel fences and anchors and fixed by inserted rocks. It is demonstrated with the example of vertical tsunami barriers extending at least 50 m up to 4 km below sea level. New gained land surface and also the fishing farms between tsunami barrier and shore may compensate most of the costs. Walls and buildings in deep sea may assist deep-sea mining. Vertical walls extending above sea level, preferably protected with hanging triangular structures as surge stoppers, with massive stabilization landward, will replace conventional dikes and levees and will save land areas. Vertical walls of fences extending above sea level, which are circular and filled with rocks, surround pillars to protect off-shore platforms, wind-power plants, bridge pillars and other submarine structures.
European Patent Application Publication EP 2206835 issued on Jul. 14, 2010 (Applicant: Chongqing Qianguang Machinery & Electronics Academy) discloses a breakwater, in which the surface thereof facing the sea is a curved surface rendering the cross section of the breakwater a trapezoid with curved side which comprises a shorter top side, a longer bottom side, and a curved side facing the sea. The curve profile is similar to a recumbent concaved-up parabola.
International Patent Application Publication No. WO 2013035794 A1 issued on Mar. 14, 2013, Inventors: Okumura, et al. discloses a wave-absorbing structure provided with a plurality of columnar blocks disposed in such a way as to lie along a shore line. An adjacent first block and second block from among the plurality of blocks form a water channel linking the offshore side and the shore side, and the distance between a wall surface of the first block and a wall surface of the second block which form the water channel becomes gradually smaller from the offshore side towards the shore side.
Chinese Utility Model Application Publication No. CN203742023 (U) published on Jul. 30, 2014 (Inventors: LYU XILIN, et al.) discloses an anti-tsunami filled wall frame structure comprising a main structure, structural columns, structural beams, filled wall blocks, and tie bars. The main structure is composed of frame columns and frame beams. The structural columns and the structural beam divide the main structure into a mesh; the mesh is filled with the filled wall blocks. The tie bars are laid in mortar joints between the filled wall blocks. The mortar joints for burying the tie bars, mortar joints between the top of the frame beams and the bottom of the filled wall blocks, mortar joints between the top of the structural beams and the bottom of the filled wall blocks, and mortar joints at set heights from the bottommost end of the main structure are all built with water-soluble cement material. Compared with the prior art, the anti-tsunami filled wall frame structure has the advantages that in case of no impact of tsunami, the main structure and the filled wall blocks jointly resist vertical load and horizontal actions such as wind and earthquake; when the structure experiences the impact of tsunami, the water-soluble material of the joints is inactivated, the filled wall blocks fail and fall, the impact of tsunami is released, the impact area of sea water is greatly decreased, and finally the main structure is freed of tsunami destruction.
Russian Patent No. RU 2524814 issued on Feb. 5, 2013 to Nikolaj Jasakov discloses a tsunami damper for protecting banks, coasts, or harbors from the destructive force of tsunami waves. The tsunami damper comprises a block of channels in the form of, for instance, packages of large-diameter pipes, installed on the sea bottom. At the side of the sea compressing deflectors adjoin the end of the channels block, and the upper deflector is strengthened with stiffening ribs, and the lower one rests onto the bottom base, which was previously profiled and reinforced against erosion, and is equipped with anchor joints. A reversible deflector adjoins the other end of the block, at the shore side, having a channeled form and reinforced with support structures with anchor joints. Tsunami waves are damped by impacting them with a strong opposite hydraulic flow, generated on their way with the proposed device, which reduces their destruction energy to the minimum.